It still feels a bit like science fiction. Imagine having dinner in New Delhi, catching a plane and arriving with heaps of time to spare for breakfast in New York, Chicago or Toronto. And you won’t even be breaking any world records.

You could call it Global Shrink. Christopher Columbus may have sailed for months to reach the New World. All you have to do is head to the airport, hop onto the mint-fresh Continental Airlines’ daily connection to Newark (a mere 25km from downtown Manhattan). Departure time: 11.45pm from New Delhi. Arrival time in Newark: 5.05am. That’s just 15 hours and 50 minutes flat and it costs about Rs 40,000.

Or, if New York’s not great at this time of year, how about landing in Chicago? American Airlines, another new entrant in Indian air space takes off from Delhi at 12.55 am. You’ll be circling over Lake Michigan and those glittering Chicago skyscrapers at around 5.20 am. Again, that’s a mere 16 hours.

It’s not just America that’s calling. Canada too has suddenly come that much closer. For, Air Canada gets you to Toronto from the Capital with a two-hour pit stop in Zurich. Or if you’d rather travel via the Middle East, the two-year-young UAE airline, Etihad Airways, will get you to Toronto via Abu Dhabi (for about Rs 46,000). That’s a bit slower so if you have dinner in Delhi, you’ll only get to Toronto in time for lunch. Until a few weeks ago, Air Canada offered the only direct flight to North America, but they’ve stopped the flight.

It’s an open secret that more Indians are heading for foreign shores than ever before. According to reliable trade estimates, about two million (and still counting) globetrotters are happily criss-crossing the skies between India and America. And almost as many are headed for Canada. Not very long ago travellers faced a gruelling 22-hour journey (at the fastest) with dreary pit stops in places like London, Paris, Amsterdam or Zurich.

But now a new battle has just broken out over Indian skies. It’s powered by hi-tech jets that can fly non-stop halfway round the globe, swallowing the air miles from India to North America ? and with fuel to spare.

The new players who’ve changed the rules of the game are the American airlines (and Air Canada). With their promise of quick, direct flights, they’re hoping to edge out the European carriers that’ve traditionally flown Indians from the sub-continent to the New World via Europe.

“Till recently, European and Asian carriers have dominated the US-India air market. But today, American airlines have also got into the act and have landed on Indian shores with direct US connections,” says Kapil Kaul, CEO, Indian Subcontinent & Middle East Centre For Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), a consulting, advisory and research group.

Of course, the Americans aren’t going to have it all their way as they muscle their way into Indian skies. From the Gulf countries, carriers like Emirates and Etihad are counting on Indians to fill their seats. And other competitors like Singapore Airlines and Malaysian Airlines are wooing Indians with the promise of stopovers and shopping halts.

To redefine the long-haul experience, airlines are pressing a battery of new generation aircraft into service. “The state-of-the-art machines are setting new standards for non-stop travel by offering greater convenience, space, comfort and time-saving for the traveller,” says Subhash Goyal, chairman, Stic Travels and a travel industry veteran.

The global carriers are looking afresh at the country because Indians have been bitten by the wanderlust and it’s showing in the trade figures. According to Ankur Bhatia, managing director, Amadeus India, “India witnesses an increase of 25 per cent each year in the traffic headed to America, which indicates tremendous growth.”

If that’s the good news, then the better news is that airfares from Delhi-New York are about Rs 5,000-10,000 less than what they were last year. “This is the result of an increase in the number of flights and connectivity between the two continents,” says Goyal. He adds that until recently there was a distinct shortage of seats between North America and India.

The booming traffic has made many airlines view India with new eyes. Take, for instance, a player like Air Canada that has traditionally taken an on-off attitude towards the Indian market. Today, Madhusudan Nair, acting manager, India, Air Canada, insists that India is a crucial market for the airline. Says Nair, “Air Canada is looking at India on a long-term basis.” Besides its Delhi flight, the airline is also offering a daily frequency out of Mumbai via a code-sharing agreement with Swiss International Airlines.

Adds Laurent Recoura, senior director, India, Continental Airlines, “There are a large number of US companies with operations in India, as well as Indian firms with trading links with the US.”

(From top) Werner Heesen; Subhash Goyal; Laurent Recoura and Ankur Bhatia

Etihad, meanwhile, added Toronto to its roster and flights between Delhi and Mumbai now connect the cities to Canada via Abu Dhabi. R. Dougie Douglas, area manager, Etihad Airlines, explains, “There has been increasing demand for air travel between India and Canada, fuelled by the ever growing business, tourism and family links that exist between the two countries.”

The Americans and Canadians have the advantage of being able to offer direct flights to North America. But the rules of the game are also being changed in other ways. All the airlines are flying to more Indian cities than ever before ? again cutting journey times and making things more convenient. So, if you live in Chennai, you can fly by Delta from the southern city to New York via Paris.

Similarly, Lufthansa links five destinations in India through Frankfurt and Munich to 18 cities in the US and some 85 destinations in Europe. Says Werner Heesen, general manager, passenger sales, India & director, South Asia, Lufthansa, “The US routes are the most popular from India.”

And, if you’d rather fly east, there is an equally wide range of choices. Singapore Airlines, for instance, might fly you out of Amritsar to Singapore and from there, it has 49 flights a week that connect to Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. From India, Singapore Airlines has 47 flights a week from eight Indian hubs (Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Calcutta, Amritsar and Ahmedabad).

Its subsidiary, SilkAir, also links Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. According to B. K. Ong, general manager-India, Singapore Airlines, a popular connection for the India market is the airline’s daily non-stop service from Singapore to Los Angeles that takes about 16 hours and the return service from Los Angeles takes about 18-and-a-half hours. He adds, “This saves on nearly two hours in flight time compared with the one-stop services.” A similar daily non-stop service between Singapore and New York that was launched in June 2004 takes 18 hours in each direction and reduces travel time by up to four hours.

From India, another unlikely carrier is taking Indians to America. Malaysian Airlines connects seven gateways (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Calcutta and Ahmedabad) to Kuala Lumpur via 33 flights per week. Onwards, the airline offers five times weekly flights to Los Angeles (a fifteen-and-a-half hour journey) with a stopover in Taipei and three times a week connection to New York (20 hours) with a stopover at Stockholm. Travellers are in-building a sub-holiday into this longish haul. Says Christopher Yek, regional manager, South Asia, Malaysia Airlines, “From time to time, Malaysia Airlines offers special deals for onwards journey.”

The dogfight at 35,000 ft means that Indian travellers are being pampered silly and the airlines are rolling out the best of in-flight services to woo them. “Value-addition is the name of the game and airlines are pulling out all the stops to make the journey more than comfortable,” adds Kaul.

How would you like to spend the 15-hour flight? For those travelling in Business Class or First, there are personalised flexi-dining services that offer gourmet cuisines from different corners of the globe ? and at any time during the flight. Throw in quieter cabins, revolutionary lighting, sky phones, choice of movies, music and video games to ensure that you aren’t bored. And you had trouble getting a vegetarian meal on a US bound flight a few years ago? “Transforming simple meals to sky-high gourmet experiences was also a logical step,” says Goyal.

Also, premium-class of travel comes with electronic sleeperseats (some even allow two metres of sleeping space when fully extended), ‘winged’ headrests, some of the widest business class seats, privacy hoods and large seat side wings that offer greater privacy. Singapore Airlines hands out exclusively designed eyeshades by Givenchy and branded toiletries from Bvlgari, and Lufthansa allows passengers to surf the Net via its hot new product, FlyNet ? that’s the world’s first wireless Internet service on commercial airplanes.

It’s an indication of how competitive the route has become that the airlines aren’t neglecting their Economy Class on the North America leg. And travellers can take some fancy facilities for granted. That’s laptop power outlets, private reading lights and entertainment systems offering multiple channels of video, audio and video games and also satellite telephones.

But as the fight hots up, is there room for everyone? The answer is a resounding Yes. Industry watchers believe that India is witnessing a very rapid growth in air travel, both domestic and international, which is expected to continue for some time yet. “The demand exists and the current growth is a result of this demand,” says Etihad’s Douglas.

On the other hand, Nair says that the Canadian and US markets aren’t fully explored by Indian travellers and vacationers are still a bit apprehensive about the strict visa regulations. “But the potential is immense with more and more Indians settling in these countries and with an increase in business interests from both areas, further growth will be a fallout. Which will also imply that there will be room for more entrants.” And passengers will be smiling all the way to North America.

Illustration by Suman Choudhury